


Never More to Go Astray

by gollumgollum



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-09
Updated: 2012-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-30 20:22:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gollumgollum/pseuds/gollumgollum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mostly, it starts because some guy plays Darcy's favorite song on the jukebox at Izzy's Diner. In which Darcy Lewis meets Clint Barton, who neglects to mention that he's one of the jackbooted SHIELD thugs that have so recently invaded her life, but at least has the good taste to agree that Styx is the best band ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never More to Go Astray

It starts because Jane's making googly moony eyes over Thor, because while Darcy's never been the kind of person to _need_ anybody, that doesn't make her the kind of person to not _want_ anybody. 

It starts because Thor is absolutely ripped but clearly Jane's, and because Darcy's human, okay?

But mostly it starts because some guy plays her favorite song on the jukebox at Izzy's Diner. 

Darcy looks up from her cell phone as the opening lines of Styx's "Renegade" echo through the diner. It's a strange choice, not least of all because it's three in the afternoon and there are only something like three other people here, including the guy tapping his fingers against the jukebox. 

He's shorter than Thor, and not quite as ripped, but that's not to say that Darcy wouldn't lick his biceps if given half the chance. He's wearing dusty jeans and work boots, a t-shirt that's both filthy with dirt and filthy in the way it stretches across his muscular shoulders, and a battered straw cowboy hat pulled down low over his eyes. He turns then, and when he passes her he touches a finger to his hat and murmurs "Miss," and by the time he hits the door Darcy is completely and utterly charmed. 

The fact that those jeans downright hugged his ass doesn't hurt, either.

\- - -

The next day everything goes to hell; they gain Sif and the Warriors Three, then turn right around and lose the four of them _and_ Thor. Jane turns into a crazy person, even more so than usual, and while Darcy is sympathetic she's definitely not a theoretical physicist, and there's only so much she can do. She sees Mr. Renegade around a couple of times, part of the temporary labor that's rebuilding Puente Antiguo, and she's not ashamed to admit that the sight of him hauling scrap and hammering things is definitely one of the few upsides to the whole wanton destruction of town thing.

Five days after Thor disappears, she sneaks off to the bar, because it's either that or murder Jane. Erik runs interference for her, which she appreciates, and when she slips out the door they're arguing about whether or not it's worth it to go back out into the desert at four in the morning. 

_If I'm drunk, I can't drive,_ Darcy thinks, ordering a shot of whiskey and a mug of beer, and she knocks the shot back before collecting her beer and heading over to an empty pool table. She may not be a theoretical physicist, but she's been playing pool with one of them all summer, and it's gotten to the point where there's something oddly soothing about figuring out all the angles. 

She's two games and four beers in when someone sets a stack of quarters down on the rail, and she looks up in irritation--last she'd checked, there were plenty of open tables. The irritation melts when she realizes who it is. 

"Mind if I take winner?" Renegade asks with the barest hint of a smirk. 

Darcy cocks her head, assessing. "I dunno. I can be kind of a sore loser sometimes."

He grins at that. "Guess you'd better not lose then." Renegade holds out a hand, and this is almost certainly a terrible idea, but she reaches out to shake. "Clint Barton." His palm's warm, calloused, and there's a promise of strength in his grip but he doesn't crush her hand. 

"Darcy Lewis," she replies, resisting the urge to curtsy a little. 

"Pleasure to meet you, Darcy." There's a little bit of a drawl to his voice--Midwestern, not quite Texan. He's got the scruffy beginnings of a goatee that wasn't there last week, but it works on him, she thinks, lining up to take her next shot. 

"No fair scouting out the competition," she says as she sinks the 12 in the corner pocket.

Clint quirks an amused smile, makes a show of looking away from the table. "Wouldn't dream of it." 

"So what brings you to town, Clint Barton?" Darcy asks, drawing a bead on the 8-ball. He glances over pointedly, and she points to the middle pocket with her cue, rolling her eyes.

"Heard there was work out this way--carpentry and what-not. Guess I showed up at a good time."

"Guess you did," she says. "Where were you when all the fun happened?"

"Working on a ranch for the day," he replies. "We got back and everything was still smoking." He takes a sip of his Sierra Nevada. "What about you?"

"Right in the middle of everything," she replies, sinking the 8 ball. 

His eyebrows rise, although at her comment or her shot, she's not sure. "Really?"

"Yup."

"Didn't feel like running away?" he asks.

"One of my friends was there, so, no, not really." It seems silly for her to say 'I had my taser,' but she considers it. 

He slides his stack of quarters into the machine with a _chunk_ , then offers the rack. "Loser buys the next round. Rack or break?"

Darcy grins. "Break."

\- - -

"So, Styx," Darcy says, sliding onto a barstool as Clint pays for their beers. "Best band ever or best band ever?"

He slides a mug her way, one eyebrow quirking up, and Darcy's had enough to drink that she can't help but think _I like the things his face does._ "This is a trick question, right?" he asks with a little laugh. 

"There's only one right answer, if that's what you mean. C'mon, soldier boy," she pokes him in the shoulder, "don't make me sing the Jeopardy theme song here."

Clint pretends to ponder for a moment, until she pokes him again. "Best band ever?"

"Exactly," Darcy says with satisfaction. "Tell him what he's won, boys!"

He grins and takes a swig of his beer, just a touch self-consciously, and it's even more endearing than she could have thought possible. In the last hour Darcy's learned that Clint's ex-Army, did a tour of duty in Iraq, and knows how to swear in both Arabic and Farsi. He's originally from Iowa, he's single, and for the last few years he's been renovating and flipping houses. And he's got this weird mix of confidence and self-consciousness that is driving her crazy, in the good way. 

And she definitely wants to lick his biceps.

"Jane won't let me listen to Styx when I drive," she confides. "Apparently I'm a menace or something, which is totally unfair given that the only driving I get to do is out in the middle of the desert where there isn't anything to hit."

"I'm beginning to question her taste," Clint replies. "I mean, other than her taste in lab assistants, of course."

"Flatterer," Darcy says, not doing anything to keep it from coming out a little smug.

He shrugs, a cocky little motion that says _yeah, but you clearly don't mind._ "So what all do you do for her?"

"Oh, you know, filing, driving, coffee-making, ensuring that she eats on a regular basis. The usual wage-slave sort of thing." 

"Making sure she eats?" And again he's doing interesting things with his eyebrows. 

She nods over her beer mug. "Yeah, Jane's one of those people who's ridiculously super-smart, and therefore has all sorts of no common sense. So she forgets to eat sometimes--I think that's why she's so super-skinny."

Clint shakes his head. "I don't know how someone forgets to eat." 

"I have this theory," Darcy says, twisting around on her barstool. "So, like, everyone gets the same amount of intelligence, right? No," she says before Clint can interject, "hang on, okay? Everyone starts with the same amount of smarts, pre-drug addiction or head injury or whatever. But you get two buckets to fill up--smart stuff like Jane's, and common sense." She holds one hand higher than the other. "And some people have a whole lot of common sense, but can't, like, do algebra. And then there are some people, like Jane," she switches her hands' positions, "who can do ridiculous theoretical physics in their sleep but can't make toast without burning it, because by the time they remember they've got bread in the toaster it's already caught fire, burned itself out and grown cold." 

Clint's grinning by the time she finishes. "So where's that leave you?" 

Darcy shrugs, smirks. "I may not be able to tell you what an Einstein-Rosen bridge is, but I make _killer_ toast."

"Killer toast, huh?" Clint laughs. "I didn't know there was an art to toast." 

"Oh, there is," she replies. "There totally is. If you're lucky, one day maybe I'll show you."

Clint makes a sort of bashful smiley-smirky face into his beer bottle but doesn't answer, which is probably for the best, because Darcy's realizing that one, she's just kinda sorta made reference to future breakfast (or hey, maybe brinner) with Renegade, and two, she's succeeded in her goal of getting too drunk to drive Jane out into the desert at four a.m. Fortunately, Clint's looking more shy than turned off by the former idea, but still. Best to get going before she gets herself in trouble.

"So, it's time for all good little lab assistants to go home, I think," she announces, sliding off of her stool. 

"Big day at the lab tomorrow?" 

Darcy shrugs, digging around in her bag for a pen. "You never can tell with Jane. Some days are big days, and other days are astronomical days--pun intended, of course." Clint's laughing again, so she catches his hand and scrawls her phone number on his arm. "Text me sometime. We can talk about the intricacies of toast." 

"I'm guessing you've got strong feelings on white vs. wheat?" Clint asks. 

"Ooh, careful, cowboy. That's a whole can of worms you're about to bust open. Especially once we get to rye." 

Clint looks like he's fighting down a grin. "I can't wait."

She gives him a wave and walks out of the bar, riding on a high that's fueled by adrenaline, cute guy and intoxication. It's cool outside, but not unpleasantly so, and the quick walk home isn't enough to bring her down. 

Her phone buzzes when she's climbing the stairs to her apartment, and she pulls it out to see that there's a new text from a local number. _I kinda hate the 'will he-won't he' bullshit, so here you go. Looking forward to killer toast. -Clint_

Darcy grins and sends back a quick _Me too, cowboy._

\- - -

"So, cowboy, huh?" Clint asks. They're sitting on the roof of the lab with styrofoam boxes of takeout on their laps; the seating area of Isabela's Diner is still closed, but Izzy's kitchen survived with only minor damage, so she's serving food and coffee from a makeshift to-go window.

Darcy leans over and thwaps the brim of his battered straw hat. "You've gotta admit it fits." 

He looks pointedly at her cowboy boots, then drops his hat on her head. "Whatever you say, cowgirl." 

Darcy grins and tilts the hat so that it sits a little more rakishly on her head. "I can do cowgirl."

"That you can," he says, taking a bite out of his burger. "So where's the doc?"

"On a supply run. These government jerks showed up and took our stuff, and they've brought it back, but she's still fixing a few things."

"And driving her isn't part of your lab assistant duty?" Clint asks.

"Nope! Erik jumped on that grenade for me," she says cheerfully. "Which is why I have time to sit up here and eat lunch like a normal person, instead of Pop Tarts like... well, okay, like a college student." 

"Like the lab assistant to a prestigious theoretical physicist," he corrects. 

Darcy grins, pleasantly surprised. "Yeah, exactly." She swirls a french fry through her ketchup. "She'll have her revenge at some point, though, when she decides we need to go back out to the desert at o'dark thirty to collect data. Although probably not tonight--tonight'll be for tinkering with all of her stuff." 

Clint opens his mouth to say something, then clearly changes his mind and takes a bite of his burger instead. 

"So," Darcy says, because she's pretty sure she knows what he was thinking, "if you happened to have the evening free, this is almost certainly one of the few nights in which I'm positive I won't have to either be awake enough for late night spreadsheet compiling, or napping in anticipation of 3am desert drives."

Clint grins, shy again, and god _damn_ is it endearing. "How do you feel about dancing, cowgirl?"

\- - -

She's wearing her cowboy boots, a skirt with just a little bit of flare to it, and her favorite hoodie over an old MC-5 t-shirt. No hat, because she doesn't have a cowboy hat of her own, although she's got a hunch that she'll have stolen Clint's by the end of the night.

Clint who, she has to admit, looks _good_. Besides the cowboy hat, he's wearing his work boots and a clean pair of jeans, and another sinfully tight t-shirt underneath a short-sleeved button up with honest-to-god pearl buttons that are only halfway done up. He's still got the scruffy goatee, and she wonders if he's shaving the sides of his face or if he just doesn't grow hair there.

"So you do know how to dance, right?" he asks as they walk into the dance hall.

"You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the girl," she replies with an exaggerated drawl. 

"Next you're gonna tell me you've got a six shooter in your handbag," he teases.

"Nope! Just a taser." She gives his raised eyebrow a coy smirk in response. Let him decide if she's actually packing tonight. (She is.)

The hand that takes hers is as warm and strong as she remembers, his callouses rough but not unpleasantly so. "So where'd you learn to two-step?" she asks as he leads them out onto the dance floor.

"I was stationed at Ft. Benning for a couple of years, in Georgia. We used to go out dancing sometimes, try to pick up girls." He twirls her into an easy spin.

"Did it work?" Darcy asks as she steps back into his space. 

Clint grins, that shy-cocky thing he does. "Sometimes, yeah. The soldier thing never hurt, neither." 

"I bet." She tilts her head, studying his face.

"What?" he asks. "You're making me nervous." 

"Just trying to imagine what you looked like as a soldier." 

He shakes his head self-consciously, warm hand on her shoulder gently turning her into another spin. "About like this, but in green." 

"Yeah," she says, "I can see that working for you."

Clint spins her so they're in a promenade, both facing the same direction. She has the feeling it's so she'll stop looking at him. "You ever jump out of a plane?" she asks.

She can just catch the way his mouth is tugging into a smile over her shoulder. "Once or twice," he answers. "How 'bout you?"

"Never," she answers.

"Ever thought about it?" He spins her so that they're facing each other again, bringing her hand up to rest on the back of his neck. 

She shrugs. "Honestly, I think I'm in that camp of people that doesn't quite understand jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. I mean, you've got to admit, it's a little crazy."

"It's a lot crazy," he says, but he's grinning. "That's part of why it's fun."

"Do you ever miss it?" she asks, and as he shrugs she's suddenly aware of how soft the back of his neck is under her hand, the short hairs there tickling her fingers, the ripple of muscle under her arm. 

And of Clint smiling softly at her. "This life's got its charms." 

Later, as they're leaving, she catches herself reaching for his hand. It makes sense, in retrospect; they've essentially been holding hands all night. She checks the motion, instead reaching up to adjust the battered cowboy hat on her head.

\- - -

"Earth to Darcy," Jane's saying, and from her posture and the look on her face, it's not the first time.

Darcy blinks, shakes her head. "Sorry, bosslady. What's up?"

"You tell me," Jane says, dropping down to straddle a chair backwards. "You've been kind of out of it today."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Darcy says. She frowns at her spreadsheet and yeah, she's definitely been more than _kind of_ out of it, if her complete and utter lack of progress is anything to go by. Knowing Jane, she'd better dish now before this gets any more out of hand, because if she's spacey enough that _Jane_ is noticing...

She saves her spreadsheet and pushes back from her desk, toying with a pen. "So, uh, there's a guy."

"A guy?" Jane sits up straighter, blinking at her. "How come this is news to me, missy?"

"Welllllllllllll... I kind of didn't want to brag?" Darcy ventures. "I mean, not until I thought things were going somewhere, and, I dunno. It just seemed kind of rude to be all 'hey I met someone' right after you..." She stops herself, because _you lost someone_ is probably not the greatest thing to say. "You know."

"Still. I can't believe you've been holding out on me!" Jane says with a smile that's _almost_ convincing, and what the hell, Darcy thinks, if Jane wants to go ahead and talk about it, she could actually use some advice. "What's his name?"

"Clint. And yes, he's just as big a cowboy as the name suggests," Darcy says, a touch self-deprecatingly. "But he does construction and he's totally cut, and he's nice but not a pushover, and I really like him."

Jane pulls her chair closer. "This sounds like there's a 'but' lurking in there somewhere."

She shrugs. "I don't know if it's just because I'm used to college, where things move a little faster, but things are moving, like, _glacially_ slow. Like, he gave me a kiss on the cheek last night, which, while sweet, is still in the grandma category, you know? And--I mean, it's not that I don't think he likes me. I know he likes me. I just don't know why he's being so--" she wrinkles her nose "-- _old-fashioned_."

"Maybe he's just shy," Jane offers. "Or maybe he's got some baggage? Maybe someone hurt him badly or something and he doesn't want to get hurt again."

"Yeah, maybe," Darcy says, scuffing the toe of her sneaker against the floor. "Still. It's driving me crazy. I just want to push him up against a wall and tell him to kiss me already, dammit."

"So why don't you?" Jane asks. "I mean, you don't really seem like the shrinking violet type."

Darcy shrugs. "Yeah, but--" She sighs. "I don't know. Don't tell anyone I said this, like, ever, but I'm kind of afraid that I might scare him off."

Jane tilts her head. "I'm pretty sure he knows what he's getting into. You don't really keep your cards close to your chest, for the most part. Which is a good thing!" she insists when Darcy rolls her eyes. "I just mean that you don't really play nice just to be nice, and that's pretty obvious. So maybe he thinks that you want to make the first move, or will tase him if he's too forward--which you've gotta admit, is a real possibility."

"Not with guys I actually like," Darcy grumps. "He can be too forward any time he likes, thank you very much."

"Well, maybe he's talking to one of his friends right now about how he's really into you but you haven't made a move on him yet," and okay, when she puts it that way, it sounds a little ridiculous. 

"Alright," Darcy waves Jane away, "point taken. Time to throw myself at him and hope he's not, like, totally gay or something."

"Go get 'em, tiger," Jane says with a bright smile, and there are times when Jane drives her absolutely crazy, but oddly enough, this isn't one of them.

\- - -

Clint, it turns out, is better at darts than he is at pool, which means that Darcy ends up buying the beer this time. He makes up for it by buying them both ice cream cones - chocolate chip for him, triple chocolate fudge for Darcy - and they eat it as they walk through the quiet streets of Puente Antiguo.

"Favorite cartoon character," Darcy asks. 

"Wile E. Coyote," Clint says without hesitation. 

She raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

Clint shrugs and takes another lick of his ice cream, and it takes all her willpower not to watch his tongue. "He never gave up, no matter what. Plus, he proves your intelligence vs. common sense theory." He grins when Darcy laughs, looking just a little pleased with himself. "How about you?"

"The Powerpuff Girls, of course," she says. "Especially Buttercup."

"Wait, I thought we were going classic," he protests. "I want to switch my answer to Sterling Archer."

Darcy snorts, nearly getting ice cream in her nose. "Whatever you say, Duchess." She squints at him for a moment, doing her best to look serious. "Does that mean you have tactical turtlenecks?"

"I plead the fifth," Clint says, deadpan. 

She shakes her head, finishing her ice cream cone, and by the time they've wandered through favorite television shows (besides _Archer_ ), they're at the top of the rickety staircase outside of Darcy's doorway. 

"So," Darcy says, a touch awkwardly. 

"So," Clint echoes, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his head. "I had a ni--"

And then Darcy, thinking _I really fucking hope he's not gay,_ surges forward and kisses him. Clint freezes for a second, just long enough for her to think _oh shit, oh fucking shit_ and then he's kissing her back, one hand cupping her cheek, the other one wrapping around her upper arm. And it's _good_ , it's really amazingly good, like, weak-in-the-knees good, and right about the time she starts wondering if she can get her front door unlocked without breaking the kiss, Clint pulls away. And, for a brief second, looks absolutely panicked. 

"Darcy," he starts, and she's aware that she's staring at him like an absolute idiot, but now she's _really confused_. "Darcy, look, I--I just can't, okay?" 

She blinks, still aware of the thumb brushing over her cheekbone and the hand on her arm that's now keeping them apart. "Why not?" 

"It just wouldn't be a good idea, and look, it has absolutely nothing to do with you, okay? I swear, it's all my own stupid issues." He pulls his hand away from her cheek then, takes a half step back and runs it over his own hair with a pained look. "I didn't think I'd like you this much, and I shouldn't--I shouldn't have let things move so fast."

 _You call this fast?_ she wants to cry, but his hand's still holding her arm like he's afraid she's going to try to move closer. Instead she pulls her arm free, ready to dig for her taser if he doesn't let go, but he does, taking another step away. "So--all of this has just been you, what, leading me on?" she asks, hating how shaky her voice sounds. 

He winces. "No--not intentionally. I mean, I never meant for it to get to this point." 

"And how is that not leading me on, exactly?" 

"Darcy--" She's never seen him this unnerved before. She's totally blown his cool, but that doesn't make her feel better in the slightest. "Look, I enjoyed spending time with you. A lot. But I can't take it any further than that, okay?"

"Why not?" She feels like a broken record at this point, but he's not giving her any damn _answers_. 

Clint shakes his head. "I'm a bad bet, Darcy. And I'm sorry. I really am."

"Don't I get to decide that?" she asks, frustrated.

But Clint just shakes his head and takes a step down the stairs. "No. I'm sorry, Darcy. But I can't do this."

And abruptly, Darcy just wants to be done with this conversation. "Fine," she says, turning around and digging for her keys in her bag. "Just go away, then." 

He hesitates, and she braces herself for whatever he's going to say, but it doesn't come. Instead he turns and walks the rest of the way down the stairs, the wood creaking in protest as he goes.

\- - -

Jane is surprisingly tolerant of Darcy's utterly shitty mood the next day; maybe it's the stormcloud she's clearly got following her around (and isn't that funny, it's not like she's the girl who hooked up with the god of fucking thunder), maybe it's the way her keyboard clatters like a machine gun when she types, maybe it's the angry punk rock she's playing out of her tiny computer speakers because she _still doesn't have her iPod back_ , but Jane keeps her distance all day and doesn't once ask what's wrong.

Until the sun starts to set, at which point Jane sets a bottle of rum and a bottle of nailpolish on her desk and says "Mojitos and mani-pedis on the roof in five," like it's an order.

Darcy thinks about arguing. The roof is painfully vulnerable, and the last thing she wants is to look down and see Clint walking by. But fuck him, she thinks, fierce and pissed off all over again, and as she lugs a bucket of ice and limes up the ladder she hopes he walks by and sees her busy moving on and being _over him._

Jane mixes a mean mojito, and between that and the stomachache that's kept her from eating anything more than crackers and Diet Coke all day, Darcy's pretty sure she's going to be too drunk to go down the ladder within the hour. But that's why they've got sleeping bags up here, she thinks, sprawling back in one of the lawn chairs and letting Jane paint her toenails a purple so bright that Thor can probably see it, if he's looking down from wherever-he-is. 

"So," Jane says, concentrating on her paint job, "you wanna talk about it?"

Darcy shrugs half-heartedly. "What's there to talk about? I kissed him, he freaked out and ran away."

Jane winces. "Ouch. Just like that?"

"Just like that. I mean, there was the usual bullshit about how he didn't mean to lead me on, and it's not me it's him, but basically, he turned tail and ran."

"Oh, Darcy," Jane sighs, making a sympathetic face. "I'm sorry." 

Darcy shrugs again. "Whatever." She takes a long sip of her mojito-- _definitely_ gonna be too drunk to go downstairs--and sighs. "I wish he'd at least been gay. Then we could have just laughed about how absolutely embarrassing the whole thing was and then been bros together." 

"Maybe he is," Jane points out. "I mean, I love Puente Antiguo, but it is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Maybe he's not comfortable saying so, especially to a girl who kissed him."

"Hush," Darcy says grumpily. "We're still mad at Clint."

"Still mad," Jane says, moving on to Darcy's other foot.

"You know what the stupid thing is?" Darcy says once her drink's down to mostly ice, squinting out at the setting sun. 

"Mmm," Jane replies, concentrating on Darcy's pinkie toe. 

"The stupid thing is, he started it." It comes out quieter and a lot less pissed than she intends it to, and she knocks the rest of her drink back in frustration. "He's the one who approached me."

Jane nods. "Yeah. Definitely gay." Which, whatever, Darcy has met Dr. Donald Blake, it's not like Jane knows that much about men. 

Later, though, as she's regretting her choice to get drunk on a roof, if only because it makes trips to the bathroom _exceedingly_ awkward, she caves and sends Clint a text. Because really, it's like she told Jane; she'd be fine with laughing at what an idiot she is and moving on to being awesome bros with him if that's the only thing in the cards for her. (And who knows, maybe he'd let her lick his biceps after all. Platonically.) 

_so are you gay or something? i won't tell anyone if you are, i promise._

She's just about given up on getting a reply when her phone buzzes. _No._

And then a second later, another buzz. _Sorry._

 _you don't know what you're missing,_ she taps out--but then she erases it, tucks her phone back in her pocket, and tells her bladder to shut up.

\- - -

Darcy self-medicates with a weekend of alternating between listening to all of her TV on the Radio albums and playing Portal 2 until she passes out. By Monday, she's close to finding her zen again as she pulls on her favorite skirt and boots; it doesn't hurt that the day dawns clear and cool and desert-gorgeous, or that she's decided to treat herself to breakfast tamales. She's just shoveling the last awkward tamale bite into her mouth as she walks down the street when she realizes that there are two shiny black SUVs parked in front of the lab.

And Clint motherfucking Barton, leaning against the wall next to the door, dressed in black and passing something from hand to hand. 

He pushes off the wall when he catches sight of her, intercepting her about fifteen feet away from the door--which would be fine, except that Jane's got the service doors open to catch the morning breeze, and she's pretty sure Coulson or whatever SHIELD goons are lurking inside are going to be able to hear whatever they say. She may still be in college, but she is so not bringing her drama into the workplace, especially not with these SHIELD dudes around. "Now is not a good time," she says, trying to brush past him. 

"Darcy," Clint says quietly, and then "Darcy!" a little bit louder as he catches her arm. 

She twists free but stops, worried that he'll try to follow her inside. (Although the notion of letting Coulson and his g-men chase Clint off is _almost_ worth the potential embarrassment.) "What? This isn't a good time, Clint." 

"That's why I'm out here," he says, nodding towards the building. "I wanted to explain, before things got any messier." He passes whatever-it-is from his left hand to his right. "Look, Darcy, I'm really sor--"

"That's my iPod," she interrupts as she recognizes it, snatching it out of his hands. "This-- _This is my iPod._ " Clint looks awkward and a little sheepish, rubbing the back of his head, and Darcy has never been more furious _in her life._ "Why do you have this?" she demands, even though all of the pieces are falling into place--the timing of Clint's arrival in Puente Antiguo, the presence of the SHIELD agents in the lab, the iPod in his hands. " _Why do you ha--_ "

"Is there a problem, Agent Barton?" someone interrupts swiftly from behind her, and she turns to see Coulson standing in the open doorway, looking as exasperated as his stupid robot face can probably get. 

Darcy turns, in one smooth motion, and hits Clint in the throat with the edge of her hand--not hard enough to really hurt him, just enough to stun him and to get her point across. And then, ignoring Jane's "Wait, is his name _Clint_ Barton?" and Clint's choking noises, she turns and stomps back the way she came, iPod clutched in one hand, the other ready to reach for her taser if Clint follows. 

Clint doesn't follow. 

She's only a little disappointed by that.

\- - -

Darcy spends the rest of the day holed up in her tiny apartment. She gets a text from Jane as soon as she gets home, in Jane's customary all-caps: _ARE YOU OK? SHIELD BIGWIG HERE, CAN'T GET AWAY._

 _i'll be okay. don't want to be around stupidface,_ she sends back. _i'm taking a personal day._

 _ABSOLUTELY. I'LL STOP BY LATER TONIGHT._

_thanks, bosslady._

And then, having beaten Portal 2 over the weekend, she queues up the songs she'd downloaded onto her iPod just before SHIELD had confiscated it and starts to clean her apartment and pack, because she has the feeling that either she's about to be sent home for assaulting a SHIELD agent, or she's about to be sent home because SHIELD are here to take Jane somewhere else. 

By the time she's done, her Jane-applied manicure is chipped to hell, her apartment is spotless, half of what she brought to Puente Antiguo with her is boxed or in a suitcase, and someone's knocking at her door. 

She expects Jane to be standing there, or maybe Erik. Hell, she'd be less surprised to find Coulson or Thor standing on her doorstep. What she doesn't expect is Clint, cleanshaven and puppydog-eyed, with a book tucked underneath one arm. 

"Something I can do for you, _Agent_ Barton?" she asks coolly, beyond aware of her ridiculous pigtail braids and her chipped nail polish and the film of dust and grime on her glasses. 

"I lied to you," he says, and it's quiet but firm. "I lied to you and I let things get out of hand, and I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry." 

"No," she says, "you shouldn't have." And that would be enough, really, except she spent all day scrubbing her toilet and sink and sweeping her floors and packing up her little Puente Antiguo life that she was realizing she actually kind of liked a _lot_ and thinking about what she would say to Clint Barton, if given half the chance, and here he is on her doorstep. "Was I a mission or a joke, _Agent_?" she snaps. "Because that's what I've been trying to figure out all day--if this was some weird SHIELD ploy to--to--I don't know, get close to us, to keep tabs on Jane and her research, and you all figured that she already had her Norse god boyfriend, so maybe you could play off of the lonely lab assistant who's too young to know better?"

"Darcy--" Clint starts.

"Or was it a game," she continues, bulldozing over him, "something to pass the time while you were stuck in this little one-horse town? Let's flirt with the stupid college girl, she's got a decent rack?" 

" _Darcy_." 

"Did you have a pool going? Huh? See how far you can take it before she tries to kiss you?" 

"It was protection," Clint says once she finally takes a breath. "I was sent here by SHIELD to protect you, and Dr. Foster and Dr. Selvig. Word's getting out about what your boss has done, and we wanted to take precautions."

"And do you flirt with all the girls you protect, Agent Barton?" she asks acidly. 

He shakes his head, looking miserable. "Only you." 

Darcy crosses her arms and glares at him. "What reason do I have to believe you? How am I supposed to believe a word you say when everything you've told me so far has been a lie?"

"It hasn't, though," he says. "Look, the only things I wasn't truthful about were SHIELD and my military history, and in both cases they were lies of omission. But everything else-- _everything_ else we talked about, I was a hundred percent truthful with you."

But Darcy's shaking her head. "You can talk all you want, Clint, but I still have no reason to believe you."

"I know." He holds out the book that he's got tucked under one arm, and she realizes it's a photo album of sorts, with newspaper clippings and a few loose photographs sticking out of the sides. "Look, I have never shown this to anyone before. Some of the stuff in here, I've never _told_ anyone. And I know that it's still not proof, but Darcy, this is my history." He taps the cover of the book, gently. "This is who I am. And look, if you want me to go away and leave you alone, I will. I will ask Coulson to reassign me and I will do my absolute best to make sure our paths never cross again, personally or professionally. But Darcy, I _am_ sorry. I like you, and I really liked spending time with you, and I wasn't trying to make a fool of you." 

If Clint's expressions were killer when he was laughing with her, the look on his face now is devastating. "Fine," Darcy says, taking the book out of his hands. "You stay out here, because I can't look at that face right now."

He blinks. "I--"

"Stay out here." She closes the door before he can protest any further, and after a moment she hears him cross to the top step and sit down.

Once she's sure he's not going to come waltzing in, she takes the book to the only table in her apartment and sits down, shoving a half-packed box to one side. It is a photo album, like she thought; in the beginning there are family pictures--baby pictures of two blond boys, one a couple of years older than the other, labelled _Barney and Clint_ in looping, slightly shaky handwriting. Darcy flips through a few pages, glancing at the pictures, before she gets to the first newspaper clipping-- **WAVERLY COUPLE KILLED IN WRECK; Children survive with minor injuries**. There's a picture of the couple and their two boys, one of the same photos that had been on one of the previous pages, printed with the article. Darcy skims the article--father driving, alcohol suspected, children ages 8 and 6. 

She flips to the next page and there's what looks like a class photo, children lined up in rows on risers, but at the bottom it says _Iowa State Home for Children._ She searches through the faces looking for Clint, but she can't pick him out of the miserable lineup. On the next page there's a flyer for the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders, as well as what looks like the feathered fletch of an arrow, pressed between the pages.

There are more circus flyers and handbills, for the Carson Carnival as well as Tiboldt's Circus and the Coney Island Circus, followed by a flyer that's so large that the top half's been folded back down and into the book. She unfolds it to read **Hawkeye, The World's Greatest Marksman** , but there's no picture, only a graphic of an archery target with four arrows all sticking out of the center.

The next page is a picture of Clint, the first one she's come across since the orphanage shot, babyfaced and stern in Army dress greens with a beret just slightly askew across his dirty blond buzz cut. He looks young and uncomfortable, but there's something fierce in his gaze, too, something angry. 

There's a letter tucked in between the pages. It's sealed, addressed to _Barney Barton_ with a Washington, D.C. address. The words _Return to sender_ are scrawled across the front. Darcy leaves it where it is.

She flips through more pages--a few shots of Clint, arm around another soldier's shoulders, in combat greens somewhere that might be Iraq or Afghanistan. A few newspaper clippings. And then an obituary--Barney Barton, FBI agent, killed in the line of duty. She lingers over that for a second before turning to the last page.

A pair of dogtags, Clint's, taped to one side, and, a picture of a woman with chin-length red hair on the other. She's older than Darcy, giving the camera a look that's somewhere between tolerated amusement and put-that-away-before-i-hurt-you. 

Darcy closes the book, careful not to catch or dislodge anything. She takes a deep breath, lets it out. And then she goes to the kitchen, grabs two bottles of beer, and heads outside. 

"So who's the redhead?" she asks, handing Clint his beer before she sits down on the top step next to him.

"Natasha," he says. "We broke up." 

"How long ago?" 

"About a year. Longer than we were together. But, we, uh, still work together," he admits. "In the interests of full disclosure."

Darcy raises one eyebrow. "You kind of suck at keeping your work life and your personal life separate."

Clint huffs a laugh at that. "Yeah," he agrees, rolling his beer between his palms, "I kind of do. One of the hazards of a top secret job, I guess."

She shakes her head, taking a long sip of her beer. "I probably can't ask what you do, can I?"

"You can ask, but..." he shrugs. "I can tell you I'm a SHIELD agent. That's about it."

"It's more than I got out of you before," she shrugs. "So what did you do in the Army, exactly?"

Clint doesn't look at her. "I was Delta Force." 

"What, like the Chuck Norris movie?"

He snorts. "Kind of like the Chuck Norris movie, yeah. They, uh, have a thing for guys who are really good shots." 

"Guys like Hawkeye, the World's Greatest Marksman?" she smirks.

Clint rubs a hand over his face, but he's smiling. "I knew I shouldn't have shown that to you. I'm never gonna hear the end of it, am I?"

"Probably not," Darcy says, and then realizes she's just admitted that she plans to keep talking to Clint. She takes a quick sip of her beer to cover this momentary awkwardness, but when she's done she still doesn't have anything to say. 

"Have I said I'm sorry yet?" Clint asks, and now he's looking at her, and oh god, those puppydog eyes are going to be the death of her yet. "Because I am."

Darcy considers for a moment. "Are you sorry that you got close to me, that you made me think that maybe there was something going on there, or that you didn't tell me about the fact that you were here stalking me for work?"

"Um, that last one," Clint bites his lip. "I think. I mean, I'm not sorry that I got to know you, and I enjoyed every minute of it. That part was true. I am sorry about the way it happened, and that I couldn't be upfront with you. And I'm sorry that you found out in pretty much the worst possible way."

"Yeah, that part sucked, a lot," Darcy agrees. "Let's never do that again."

"Deal," Clint says. 

"One more question, and this one's the most important one of all." Darcy fixes him with her best Stern Look. "Styx: Best band ever or best band ever?"

Clint laughs at that, shooting her a sidelong look that's sort of disbelieving and hopeful all at the same time. 

Darcy doesn't even wait for his answer before she kisses him.

\- - -

Darcy's phone buzzes from somewhere on the floor, waking her up. She untangles herself from Clint and the blankets just long enough to dig around through the pile of clothes and find it before curling up against his side and flipping it open. "H'lo?"

"Darcy?" Jane sounds like she's in full-on mad scientist mode. "Where are you?"

"Um..." Darcy blinks at the clock, dimly aware of Clint stirring next to her. "At home, in bed, where I always am at seven in the morning when we're not in the middle of the desert." 

Jane sighs. "Get your ass down here! We've got to get everything packed for New York, like, yesterday."

"New York?" Darcy blinks again--and then turns to look at Clint, who's looking more than a little sheepish. "Did you know about this?" she hisses, one hand over the mouthpiece of her phone.

Clint bites his lip. "Did I not mention it?" he asks, just as Jane says "Yes, we're moving to SHIELD Headquarters in New York." 

Darcy's eyes narrow. "Are we now?" 

Clint, at least, looks appropriately abashed. "Um, ask her if it has to do with the Avengers Initiative."

"Does it have to do with the Avengers Initiative?" Darcy asks, although she's definitely giving Clint the stink-eye now. 

"Yeah, it--wait, who--" Jane's tone changes _entirely_ as her brain catches up. "So you and Clint made up, huh?"

"I'll see you in twenty, bosslady. There'd better be coffee," Darcy says, rather than justifying that with a response, then hangs up. 

"Look, you have to admit I was a little distracted last night," Clint says as Darcy pounces on him.

"What, exactly, is the Avengers Initiative?" she asks.

Clint grins, still sheepish. "Well, you remember how I'm really bad at separating my work life and my personal life?"

Darcy hits him with a pillow. But only because her taser isn't handy.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, for one, i totally stole Darcy's throat-punching maneuver from a move Kat Denning's character Norah pulls on Michael Cera in _Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist_. For the record, _i do not condone punching anyone in the throat._ It's a terrible idea and can lead to serious injury. (Darcy's just enough of a BAMF to pull it off without hurting Clint too badly, plus no one ever stays dead in comics.) Seriously, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.
> 
> Second, Erik kind of fell out of this story, and i feel a little bad for that. But i have it on good authority that he's terrible at giving mani-pedis. Or relationship advice. Assume that for a vast chunk of the story, he's off wandering through the labrynthine SHIELD basement, having his post-credits scene with Fury (and, um, Loki).
> 
> Third, waketosleep wrote Clint as former Delta Force in [this awesome fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/199387), and i totally stole it from them, because boy howdy is that my headcanon now. And really, it makes perfect sense. 
> 
> And finally, zomg i have the awesomest betas in the world. They totally put up with me dropping this story unannounced in their inboxes, in bits and pieces, until it was done; they were fabulous cheerleaders along the way; and they totally helped whip this into shape and make it mo' betta. I wouldn't have done it without you guys - [beanarie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie), [LariaGwyn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LariaGwyn), [MissCora](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCora/pseuds/MissCora), [MrsDrJackson](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsDrJackson), [WGSarah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WGSarah) and [space_raider182](http://space-raider182.livejournal.com). <3


End file.
